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"Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine" by Jim Downs explores the emergence of epidemiology as a result of colonialism, Atlantic slaving, and imperialist wars from the late eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth century. Downs examines various locations worldwide to understand how these forces influenced physicians and scientists to consider disease at the population level. The book highlights the use of global networks, scientific journals, and communication between different empires to collect and analyze data on disease outbreaks. Downs also emphasizes the contributions of enslaved and colonized people to the development of epidemiological science, drawing on Black feminist approaches. The book covers topics such as the link between overcrowding and disease on slave ships, debates on contagion theory, the role of military physicians in studying diseases like yellow fever, and the impact of war on medical practices. Downs utilizes a range of evidence, including archival materials and medical journals, to explore transimperial networks of knowledge production. While the book's teleological frame of medical progress may be analytically questionable, it offers valuable insights for historians of medicine researching the intersection of health, slavery, war, and colonialism. [Extracted from the article]

This article evaluates the high-profile claim that enslaved African-Americans produced over 50 percent of US national product in the pre-Civil War period. The accounting exercise shows the fraction was closer to (and indeed likely slightly below) the share of the population, that is, about 12.6 percent in 1860. The enslaved population had higher rates of labor force participation, but they were also forced to work in sectors–agriculture and domestic service—with below average output per worker. The economic surplus generated by the enslaved was due chiefly to the low value of the very basic consumption bundle provided rather than to exceptionally high values of production per capita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]